Monday, May 11, is the scheduled deadline for U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno to decide whether to seek an independent counsel to investigate Labor
Secretary Alexis Herman.

On Tuesday, May 12, the Cannes Film Festival opens in France.

On Wednesday, May 13, a hearing on whether convicted Oklahoma City bombing
co-conspirator Terry Nichols should pay restitution to bombing
survivors and victims' famililies will be held in Denver.

On Thursday, May 14, the final episode of "Seinfeld" will air on NBC.

On Friday, May 15, the presentation of the annual Daytime Emmy Awards is to be held. For the 18th time, "All My Children" actress Susan Lucci has been
nominated for best actress.

On this day

In 1566, Leonhard Fuchs, German physician and botanist after whom the Fuchsia plant is named, died.

In 1655, Jamaica was taken by the British after being in Spanish hands for 161 years.

In 1774, King Louis XV of France died of smallpox. He became king at the age of five on the death of his great-grandfather, Louis XIV.

In 1796, Napoleon Bonaparte's Army of Italy defeated the Austrians under Baron Beaulieu in the Battle of Lodi, southeast of Milan. More than 2,000 Austrians were killed or wounded.

In 1798, George Vancouver, British navigator and explorer, died. He sailed with Captain James Cook to Australia and New Zealand and to the West Coast of North America where Vancouver Island and Vancouver B.C. are named after him.

In 1818, Paul Revere, American patriot, died. Famed for warning Boston-area residents of the advance of British troops.

In 1838, John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, born.

In 1863, Stonewall Jackson, Confederate general in the American Civil War, died eight days after being accidentally shot by his own troops.

In 1865, Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, was captured by Union forces.

In 1869, U.S. Pacific railroad was completed when the Union Pacific and Central Pacific lines were joined at Promontory, Utah.

In 1871, France and Germany signed a peace treaty in Frankfurt by which France ceded Alsace-Lorraine.

In 1881, King Carol I, Romania's first king, was crowned.

In 1899, Fred Astaire, U.S. singer, actor and dancer, born as Frederick Austerlitz. Famed for his easy-going dancing style in many films notably "Top Hat," "Easter Parade" and "Silk Stockings."

In 1920, John Wesley Hyatt, U.S. inventor who discovered the process for making celluloid, died.

In 1925, William Ferguson Massey, New Zealand statesman and prime minister (1912-25), died in office.

In 1933, Nazis, nationalist students and professors in black robes gathered on a square in central Berlin to burn books by Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Bertolt Brecht, Albert Einstein and other authors condemned by Adolf Hitler's followers as decadent or "un-German."

In 1940, Winston Churchill took over as British prime minister following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain.

In 1940, Germany invaded Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Belgium.

In 1941, Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess, flew from Augsburg and parachuted into Eaglesham near Glasgow, Scotland, in an apparent attempt to negotiate a peace deal. He was arrested and imprisoned for the rest of the war.

In 1945, Russian troops occupied Prague; the Allies captured Rangoon from the Japanese.

In 1972, the Irish Republic voted in a referendum by 83 percent to join the European Economic Community.

In 1977, Joan Crawford, American actress, died. Born Lucille Le Sueur, she won an Oscar in 1945 for her role in the film "Mildred Pierce."

In 1981, in West Germany, the Social Democrats lost elections in West Berlin for the first time since World War II.

In 1994, Nelson Mandela was sworn in as South Africa's first black president.

In 1995, Britain lifted a 23-year ban on ministerial talks with Sinn Fein, political wing of the Irish Republican Army.

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